On Point with Tom Ashbrook

"Spiritual but not religious," is the box that an awful lot of Americans are checking these days. Into God, as they define God. Into soul. Into ...

Americans love sugar. And the big food processors love to feed it to us, by the ton. Put the two together, and you've got one big fat, sick probl...

Between global warming and gas prices and melting ice caps and the Mayan calendar of apocalypse, it's awfully easy to slide into a funk on the futu...

It was a close call, way too close for comfort, but it went for Mitt Romney in Michigan last night. Arizona, too. Rick Santorum was left feeling ...

Online shopping is such a breeze. Plug in your credit card. Point, click and buy. It seems like magic. But what happens after that little e-mai...

They called World War I the "Great War." The war to end all wars. It was bloody and brutal and massively murderous. Trenches. Mustard gas. Bod...

We're loaded with stories we've heard since childhood about the way the world works. A penny dropped from the top of the Empire State Building cou...

New York took the biggest hit on 9/11. The New York City Police Department made the biggest response. Brought in big guns from the CIA. Pumped up s...

Her voice is sweet her message is potent. singer songwriter Anaïs Mitchel's new album Young man in America is about a gender and a generation aband...

Gas prices are spiking; the burning of Korans leads to protests and deaths -- but not all news is bad -- Newt Gingrich is, in a word, cheerful. Th...

The promise of charter schools has clearly not been fully realized. There are successes, to be sure. But the question is: What to do with the failu...

The Manassas High School Tigers were bad, so bad that other football teams paid them to come, play, and get beaten. But a new coach breathed life ...

The lead up to the Oscars is extremely loud, what with the ceremony being incredibly close. Wooing voters is a war, tracking it all is like a hors...

On the day of the GOP debate in Arizona, immigration is sure to come to the fore. Almost 22 million Latino voters will be eligible to vote in the 2...

As a son of South Africa, more specifically a son of a South African activist, Zakes Mda was forced into exile as a boy. It was a weird kind of ex...

Two bills before Congress would allow employers or insurance companies to deny health care coverage on moral grounds. That's right, your previousl...

Jeremy Lin, point guard without precedent. He's scored more in his first 5 games than any hall of famer-- Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal incl...

Syria-- friend of Iran, fomenter of malice; master of Lebanese puppets; conduit to Hezbollah, oppressor of its own. The government of Bashar Assad ...

This week a pug-nosed Pekingese named Malachy won Best in Show at the Westminster dog Show. But who are these eccentric people who devote their liv...

In politics this week it was all about a Santorum surge and more doubts about Romney's ability to excite the party faithful. And speaking of surge...

So, let's review the big picture. We've got an environmentally-strapped planet with a huge population to feed. We've got a bum economy where Amer...

Heir apparent top leader of China, Xi Jinping, in Iowa this morning, visiting old friends. We hope he had a great country breakfast, a nice chat, ...

Put a cello in the hands of young Kevin Olusola and something happens that you haven't seen from, let's say, Yo Yo Ma. At least not yet. The cell...

Back in the day on Capitol Hill, Senator Rick Santorum built a reputation as a testy, self-righteous culture warrior of the first order. Ardent in...

Libertarian lightning rod Charles Murray knows how to whip up a big American debate. His last time out was with "The Bell Curve" and an argument t...

Say Kama Sutra and everybody thinks sex. And there is plenty of that in the ancient text out of India. Carnal engagement every which way and meti...

Today, most people see the great whales of the sea as something quite extraordinary. Intelligent, majestic, beloved, even cosmic.

A century ago -...

American women in the U.S. military are formally barred from being assigned to direct combat roles. But in Iraq and Afghanistan, that line has bec...

Back in the day in the USA, coffee was coffee -- just pour it. Maxwell House, Folgers in your cup. Just give us the joe. And a whole lot of coff...

Housing, Homs, the Catholic Church, Greeks, and Rick Santorum in the news this week. A mega-deal on banks, housing and foreclosure -- but not mega ...

Once upon a time in the world of restaurants and retailers and travel destinations there were only a few ways to establish a reputation. There was...

The scale of big money in this year's presidential election campaign is taking the influence of the dollar to a new level in American democracy. S...

It's python heaven in the Florida Everglades these days. And python hell for just about every other species a python can swallow. The Burmese pytho...

We just want it to be over -- this bad economy meat grinder. And maybe it is, getting there. Better job numbers last week. Industrial production...

Bringing up baby is always a challenge. Raising kids. Child-rearing. There are a million ways to do it. Americans seem to wonder endlessly if t...

The sound and images out of Syria the last few days are terrible. Government artillery shells on suburban neighborhoods and heavy machine gun fire...

The image is impossible to forget once you've seen it. Leonardo DaVinci's "Vitruvian Man" -- the bold, nude, outstretched human figure; arms and l...

A wild blow-up last week in the world of women's health. Breast cancer and mammograms, family planning and abortion all clanging in a three-day sto...

In October, 1971, something new hit the television screens of America. Chicago host Don Cornelius stepped in front of live cameras and introduced ...

8.3 percent unemployment is the story of the week. Been up so long it looks like down to us. Progress, we hope. And right behind that number this w...

Apart from health care costs, there's almost nothing that goes up in this country like the cost of college. Up and up and up. Way faster than inf...

The story was almost too bad to believe. At the very time millions of Americans were desperately struggling to hang on to their homes, to keep the...

Mitt Romney wins in the Sunshine State. We'll break down the primary results and ask -- what's next for the GOP?

Is America in decline? It's become almost assumed in recent years. China, India, Brazil, others -- up. America -- down. Humbled. Less than it ...

A whole new take on the Arab Spring and how it happened from Al Jazeera's top analyst Marwan Bishara.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

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Raising America's high school drop out age to 18. No exceptions. Is this the magic bullet to help kids from slipping through the cracks?

Tuesday, ...